


See You Again

by safetoshore



Category: Monsta X (Band)
Genre: Immortals, M/M, lads this is so tender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-24 05:15:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20352976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safetoshore/pseuds/safetoshore
Summary: Jooheon sat under a beach umbrella, looking for his next conquest and trying to avoid a sunburn, when he saw him.





	See You Again

**Author's Note:**

> me to myself: u have to write the jookyun u want to see in the world

Jooheon's eyes scanned the crowd of scantily clad beach goers. It was spring break once again and Jooheon, aged 352 (give or take a decade or two) was in his element. 

He was eternally 24 years old, with sharp features that turned cherubic with the slightest upturn of his lips. The rest of his appearance was always changing, cycling through colors and styles and trends. This year his hair was honey gold, freshly dyed and artfully styled in preparation for the season. 

He lived at this resort year round. Rich and reclusive enough to not be exposed by the few year round staff as never aging, young looking and outgoing enough to blend in with the trust fund kids on vacation. 

Jooheon loved Spring break, because with it came crowds of rowdy college kids, eager to make questionable choices they could keep as unforgettable memories. And boy, was Jooheon unforgettable. 

He had perfected, over the decades spent in paradise, the art of the perfect summer fling. He was cute and flirty, easy to talk to, easy to seduce without losing the fun of the chase. He was a once in a lifetime experience to look fondly back on without creating the urge to reconnect. Jooheon never saw his partners twice, nor did he want to. 

Until he did. 

Jooheon sat under a beach umbrella, looking for his next conquest and trying to avoid a sunburn, when he saw him. He was a little above average height, dark hair parted over his forehead showing off an eyebrow piercing. He had soft, closed off features that made him look mysterious and a little cold. He looked like someone you wanted to win over just to brag about journeying where few could imagine. He was beautiful, Jooheon's type to a T. Which is why Jooheon noticed him in the first place, which is why Jooheon knew he had seen him before. 

Impossible, considering Jooheon had seen him 50 years ago, and the man looked exactly the same. Jooheon wasn't one to talk, he'd looked the same for centuries. Which is why it was impossible that the man, Daniel, Jooheon thought distantly, was standing on the beach thirty feet from Jooheon, wearing ugly green swim trunks and sipping a beer. 

There was no way. People looked like people all the time. Jooheon had seen it, over the years, people that looked like people that looked like other, long dead people. Reincarnations maybe, or coincidences. That's what this was. 

In all his years, Jooheon had never met someone else like him. The man he knew wasn't the one in front of him, Jooheon had nearly convinced himself. Until Daniel looked in Jooheon's direction. 

His eyes landed on Jooheon not like he knew he was there, but like finding him was inevitable. Daniel looked at him and Jooheon knew, from the black of his hair to the slope of his nose to the shock on his face Jooheon could see even at this distance. It was him. 

Jooheon smiled at him in that sweet, alluring way he knew urged people to trail desperately after him, and headed for the cantina. He didn't look behind him as he went. Like Oedipus of legend, he feared that if he doubted, Daniel would disappear on the ocean breeze. 

Jooheon walked behind the cantina, to the space between it and the dance hall nextdoor. It wasn't quite an alley, more like a crevice between the buildings, small and private. He heard someone move behind him and turned slowly. 

Daniel stood an arms length from him, expression shuttered but hands twitching at his sides like he itched to reach out and touch Jooheon, confirm he was real and not some fever dream. Jooheon beat him to it. He reached up, fingers just barely brushing Daniel's cheek. A thrill going up his spine when he didn't disperse into smoke.

"You haven't changed a bit." Jooheon whispered. Daniel let out a breath that he had apparently been holding, and his whole body shuddered on the exhale. 

"You're-" 

"The same. Yeah. So are you, Daniel." 

"Changkyun, actually. Changkyun's the name I had first. I went by Daniel because it was easier-" He stopped, like he was afraid to finish his sentence, so Jooheon did it for him. 

"Back then. Fifty years ago." 

Changkyun nodded. He brought his hand up to where Jooheon's still rested, feather light against his face, held Jooheon's hand in his and leaned his cheek into his touch. 

"How are you here? How are you the same?" He asked. 

Jooheon shrugged. "I don't know. I just know I was normal until I wasn't. I turned 24 and then I never got any older. I thought I was alone. I've lived at this resort since it opened. Lived on this coast for even longer. I've never seen the same person twice. I've never seen someone else-" Jooheon's voice broke, surprising both of them. He cleared his throat and continued. "-I've never seen someone else like me." 

Changkyun looked at Jooheon, and the midday sun turned his eyes molten metal, and the look in them was heartbreaking understanding. It was the look of someone who felt seen for the first time, who saw someone else for the first time. 

"If I had known I- I would have come back sooner." He said. Jooheon shook his head. He wasn't crying, but it was a near thing. 

"I've always traveled. It's how I kept people from realizing I was the same. This is the first time I've come to the same place twice. I thought it would be a long enough gap for everyone to forget me. If I had known-" Changkyun let the end of his sentence hang like he was standing on a cliff's edge, like finishing it would mean stepping off into oblivion. Jooheon understood. 

For so long he had avoided growing attached to anyone, had known it was impossible. To have the impossible made possible in the man in front of him, all soft features and trepidation, was overwhelming. It also seemed unavoidable. Like providence had made this the first land Changkyun had stepped on twice, like it had put them in line of sight on that beach full of hundreds of people with intent. Like there had always been a reason for one of them to be nomadic and one of them static, so they would eventually, statistically, meet again. 

Jooheon moved in so close they were breathing the same air, and he lowered his voice to compensate. It was barely a whisper, but the moment felt too fragile for anything louder. 

"You're here now. You're here and you're real. You're here and you found me." Jooheon pressed their foreheads together for a brief second before leaning in further and kissing Changkyun. 

Changkyun's lips were chapped from the sun and his hair was salty and dry when Jooheon ran his fingers through it. Changkyun's hand tightened around Jooheon's and his other came up to stroke at Jooheon's hip. It was a good kiss, Changkyun had improved since the last time they had met. 

It wasn't a loud, earth shattering thing. The moon didn't stop pulling the tide and the cantina music didn't stop pounding through the building's walls. It didn't move the world, but it moved them. Jooheon felt the way Changkyun's hands trembled, felt the way his own heart stuttered in his unchanging chest. Finding each other didn't mean they would be together forever, but it did mean something. 

Jooheon broke the kiss, pulled back far enough to look at Changkyun, take him in. Jooheon smiled, and Changkyun returned in kind. 

"You're here and I'm not alone."

**Author's Note:**

> for rosie. i hope u liked it!


End file.
